Turn to Face the Strange
by Anouk Lisole
Summary: Hermione must conquer her inner demons or lose everything. A tale of self-discovery and friendship.
1. A Beginner's Spellbook

In her dream, she stood upon a narrow bridge carved of stone. There were no railings. It was sunset. From one end of the bridge somebody called her, repeating her name many times. The voice was awfully familiar. She could see a small, white hand beckoning her to come, but she could not see a face. She could not recall whose voice it was, though it seemed to her the dearest voice, perhaps the voice of her closest friend.

_That's funny_, she thought. _Who is my closest friend?_ She thought some more, but the more she thought, the less coherent became what she was thinking, until she thought, _Why, that's awfully funny. I thought I knew just a moment ago, but…what _is_ a friend?_

"I am a friend!" the voice from the end of the bridge seemed to cry urgently. "Come! Come here! Quickly!"

_If she is my friend, why doesn't she call my name?_ she puzzled._ She doesn't know my name, that's why,_ she answered herself. _A friend ought to know one's name_, she thought, but she was not sure where that thought came from, or whether it was true or not. _Am I a friend?_ She was very puzzled by this question, and then, _What _is_ my name?_ A mental silence followed, and then: _What is a name?_

_A name belongs,_ she thought, finally. _Oh…but whatever does it belong _to

Night was falling fast. The dimness was becoming darkness. And she was more lost in her thoughts than ever. In the near darkness, the white hand at the end of the bridge was fading away and the sweet voice becoming fainter. This made her awfully sad – at least, she thought it made her sad, but she was not entirely sure what _sad_ was. She thought she'd had it, but it slipped away, perhaps over the edge of the bridge, perhaps into the night, perhaps away with the voice. The darkness around her was almost total now and she could only very, very faintly hear the voice, but she could not tell what it said. Her words, her urgency, were lost to the wind.

She looked down. She was quite sure she was on a bridge. She was also quite sure it was night. She knew what night was. That was, in fact, the only thing she could remember now. Looking down, she noticed that- well, actually, she didn't notice anything. She could hardly see, but there, just there, barely visible in the blackness, she saw the small, white hand again. She smiled at it, wondering how it had got over here without her noticing. Then she realized it was her hand, and she knew who had been calling to her, and she remembered what a friend was, and she definitely felt sad now. She regretted not following the voice. And she realized she was cold. Then the darkness became complete, utterly engulfing, and she could not see anything. Then she remembered night, and she felt afraid. Afraid was worse than sad.

And she was swallowed by the night, and she could not feel anything anymore, and the little white hand finally stopped waving. Her last thought, before she was no more than another bit of darkness, was _I don't believe there are any friends in the night. No, I'm quite sure of that_.

Hermione Granger was very good at finding hiding places. Since she was a child, whenever she was angry or scared or simply wanted to be alone with her books, she would go to one of her "secret spots," and very rarely did anyone find her before she wanted to be found. Another child would easily have been discovered hiding beneath her bed or in her wardrobe, but when Hermione hid beneath her bed, it always seemed a mysteriously great deal roomier than it ought to. She had also uncovered a secret compartment within her wardrobe, which existed for no one but herself. In primary school, she had been able to escape the boys' constant torment by taking her book to a corner of the playground shaded by an ancient oak, and constructing, in her mind, a magic fortress which would keep out unfriendly visitors. Of course, none of the would-be visitors ever were friendly, so she was never bothered there. That suited Hermione perfectly.

When she received the letter from Hogwarts, her parents were, to their own surprise, relieved. Hermione had always been a bit of an odd duck; here was an explanation. Although the fact that Hermione was a witch was far from a logical conclusion, it was a peculiarity worthy of their daughter, and they were pleased. _Finally_, they thought, _she'll fit in_. Perhaps all magical children were too intelligent for their own good and naturally at odds with normal children. ("Not _normal_," Hermione's mother told herself reprovingly, "_non-wizarding_. They're all normal, in their own way.")

The fact remained, though, that Hermione _was_ too intelligent for her own good, and she had long ago disabused herself of the notion that any child could naturally like a girl such as her. She knew that she was a "know-it-all" and a "teacher's pet," and would always remain so. Hermione had learnt, long before eleven, that her nature did not endear itself to her peers, and she knowingly exacerbated the situation. She would not settle for second best, 100 was not enough, and she regarded it her duty to answer any question put to her. She never saw this as a fault, merely the price paid for a wealth of knowledge, and she craved knowledge the way some people crave food or sex or power. She tried, in the same way, to explain away the other objects of her ridicule – certain of her features, which were considered somewhat less than beautiful, namely her overlarge front teeth and her bushy hair. Brains did not come with beauty, nor beauty with brains. It was a cruel balance – or perhaps it was simply fashionable to be stupid – but Hermione didn't care about that. She knew she was not fashionable, and she did not deign to be. She knew she was better than that…sort of.

So when the letter from Hogwarts arrived, Hermione was elated; she was terrified; she positively shook with enthusiasm and radiated excitement. But she knew that the students at a school for magic would be no different than the students at Westbrook Primary, because children, with or without magical abilities, are children – gay and innocent, but also selfish and, at heart, frightened of things they don't understand. However, this was not Hermione's most pressing thought. She had dealt with ostracization for years and felt that she could easily put up with it in a different location, because it meant a whole new world would be opened up to her. Of course this explained why no one came near her in her fortress-corner of the playground, and she was proud of her magic. It was something new and exciting to excel at, which she already had excelled at, apparently. A whole new field to study. And the books! Oh, how delightful they must be! Books on magic! Books of spells! Books of magical history! Biographies of magical persons! She could hardly contain her glee.

After coming home from school, when her father tremulously handed her the thick, yellow parchment impressed with the Hogwarts crest, Hermione was concerned by what she read. Her first instinct was to leap for joy, but her second was that this was probably some trick, some spiteful prank thought up, perhaps, by the sixth form girls from school.

Presently, there was a sharp rap at the door, and Hermione guiltily shoved the letter in her pocket.

"The Granger household, I presume?" said a dignified voice from the doorstep.

"Yes – "

"Then I trust Miss Granger has received her acceptance letter?"

Mr. Granger was taken aback, wary. "I'm not sure I know – "

"Mr. Granger, I am sure you know precisely what I am speaking of, and it would be most prudent to continue this conversation within doors." The voice was still dignified, and had a knowing air about it, as though the person it belonged to had heard this response many times, but it was not without warmth. Mr. Granger was no fool, and let her in the house immediately.

The woman who entered was tall and wore square spectacles. Her hair was pulled back into a high, tight bun, and her expression displayed intelligence and a no-nonsense approach to life. Hermione was impressed.

"Miss Granger, have you read and understood the contents of that letter in your pocket?" Hermione's eyes glowed. It was real.

"It isn't a prank, then," was all she could think to say.

"No. You are a witch, Miss Granger. My name is Professor McGonagall. I teach Transfiguration at Hogwarts School for Witchcraft and Wizardry, and I am also the deputy headmistress. I am here answer any questions you may have about your abilities."

"Is one born with them? Magical abilities, I mean."

The corners of Professor McGonagall's mouth twitched in an ever so slight smile, something which they did not do often. "Unless I am much mistaken, you are a very clever girl. Yes, witches and wizards are born, not made, though it takes training to control your magic. A witch or wizard may be produced in any family, although the majority do come from a wizarding line."

"And is my magic as strong as a witch from a 'wizarding line'?"

"Certainly, and perhaps stronger than some. I have a book which might interest you." Hermione's eyes lit up. "I take it you are an avid reader?"

"Oh yes! There's nothing I like better in the world."

Professor McGonagall took out her wand and gave it a small wave. Hermione tried very hard not to blink, afraid of missing a single moment. A book appeared in mid-air and the professor took it and put it in Hermione's trembling hands. In gold letters, it read, _A Beginner's Spellbook_.

"This explains basic concepts, the uses and limits of magic, important rules, wand movements, etc."

"Oh, thank you. Thank you ever so much!"

"Please treat this book delicately. It belongs to the school library, and our librarian, Madame Pince, would be most displeased to find it in less than perfect condition."

"I will treat it with the utmost respect."

"Good. Now, if you will excuse me. I have other business to attend to." Mr. Granger made a move, but Professor McGonagall put out her hand to stop him. "There is no need to see me to the door. Please do not be alarmed." And with a loud _crack_, she disappeared into thin air.

_A Beginner's Spellbook_ was Hermione's sacred treasure. Once she had reassured her parents of the reality of what had just occurred, she hurried to the secret wardrobe compartment and read and re-read her letter over and over again, hugging herself and imagining the wild things she would learn and be capable of. She stayed awake the entire night, soaking up the Spellbook's information, not daring to tear her eyes away from the pages. She stopped only for a very brief supper, at which the Grangers were all very silent and ate very little.

Through the last few weeks of school, Hermione's thoughts were only of _A Beginner's Spellbook_ and Hogwarts. It was as if she was carrying a magic fire around inside her, a protection against the frosty treatment from her classmates. She kept the book with her wherever she went, including school, and this is how two incidents arose, which gave Hermione fair warning of what to expect in the wizarding world.

One afternoon, when the bell rang to signal the end of the school day, she very hastily packed her belongings into her book bag and the _Spellbook_ happened to stick up a couple of centimeters.

"Oi, Beaver-face! What's that moldy thing in your bag? It looks like my dead cat!" Called out Rodger, a fifth former with sadistic tendencies. Rumour was that he'd taken a hammer to his cat's head.

Hermione did not turn around to face him. "Just- just a book!" she squeaked.

"What? I can't understand you. I think your teeth are getting in the way!"

It took Hermione a moment to reply, but she swung round to face him and blurted out, all in one breath, "I said it's just a book! Leave me alone!"

The boys around Rodger smirked.

"Why do you like books so much anyway, Beaver-face? I think I'll find out." The other boys chuckled as Rodger snatched the book out of Hermione's bag. She should have realized then that something was odd. The book was really rather light, but Rodger acted as if the book weighed a ton. He frowned. "What is this made of anyway, rocks?" he muttered. Hermione was paralyzed with fear. Rodger was staring at the title of the book.

"Please just give it back, Rodger!" She was panicking. "Rodger, please!"

_What if they find out?_ she thought. _What will they do to me? What should I do?_ She gasped inwardly. _What will Professor McGonagall do?!_

Rodger was now reading the title…trying to read the title.

A Beginner's Spellbook – _it's not hard to say._ Hermione thought, even in her panic. _Even Rodger isn't that thick._

"The Ni..lo.." Rodger muttered. One of the boys behind him glanced over his shoulder and read, very slowly,

"The Nillo-tick Language of the…Muh-say…" Hermione was utterly bewildered. Rodger gave the boy a furious glare and the boy jumped back.

"You think you're so smart, Granger! Nobody cares about your stupid Nillo-ticks!" and he opened the book and made as if to tear out a page. Hermione had reached out to stop him, but suddenly Rodger froze, his eyes wide. His whole front was covered with stinksap, a mucousy, gray substance, hanging off his arms like alien bogeys. Hermione stood just as frozen as Rodger, her arms still stretched out in front of her like some comical statue.

Nobody moved or said a word for a full minute. Then Hermione snapped back to her senses. "Anti-theft device!" she yelled, the first thing that came to her mind, as she grabbed her book back, turned on her tail, and ran, clutching _A Beginner's Spellbook_ to her chest, and didn't stop running till she got to her bedroom door.

The second incident occurred after Hermione visited Diagon Alley for her books and materials, which included her wand, a beautiful vinewood and dragon heartstring, which she carried everywhere with her, along with _A Beginner's Spellbook_. Since the episode of the stinksap, she had been left almost entirely alone by the other students, and she felt sure no one would be poking in her bag again.

One day Hermione walked to school rather early and, upon finding she was the first one there, decided to practice a bit of spellwork. She opened _A Beginner's Spellbook_ and reviewed the theory for "A charm to accelerate the growth of plant life." The circular flower bed in front of Westbrook Primary was not terribly well-kept and harboured a number of weeds among the meadowsweet. Hermione chose a cluster of the small sprouts as her test subjects.

"_Plantaeum Expidae_," Hermione said firmly and flicked her wand upward. Before her eyes, the sprouts began to wriggle and stretch towards the sky. Within moments, a number of enormous, golden-rayed sunflowers in full bloom towered over her, four meters tall. Hermione gasped, then felt silly and turned about in a circle in a sort of victory dance, glowing with pride.

Now, four meter tall sunflowers would be perfectly acceptable had Hermione chosen an undisturbed field for practice, but it was at this most inopportune moment that the school prefects, who were always early, began to arrive.

Hermione's glowing cheeks flashed the colour of chalk as she was suddenly filled with horror. She hopped on the spot in panic and knocked _A Beginner's Spellbook_ to the ground.

"Got to the find the counter-charm," she mumbled to herself and dove at the book. She tore through the pages with none of the reverence she normally gave it, but she could not find it. In her frustration she accidentally ripped one of the leaves, which she had never in her life done. Dizzy with panic, she began to sob uncontrollably. The prefects were now close enough to see everything clearly, but they were absorbed in conversation.

_Oh, go away, go away! Go back in the ground! Disappear, disappear, disappear!_ she thought, her eyes screwed up. She instinctively curled into a ball on the ground.

The prefects passed by her so closely she felt one of the girls' skirts brush her, but they entered the school without pause, and Hermione heard the front door shut.

She opened her eyes and looked about. The sunflowers still bloomed. She was still curled on the ground. There was no one in sight, and there was no other explanation for it.

_Oh…my gosh…I'm invisible._

"I'm invisible!"

And then she thought again of the flowers, and decided it was best not to repeat the scene, invisible or not. Now that she could look for the counter-charm calmly, she found it exactly where it should have been.

"_Plantaeum Infantile_," she recited shakily, pointing her wand at the roots. The blooms closed and the stalks receded into the ground until they looked exactly as they had ten minutes before.

Taking deep, steadying breaths, Hermione guiltily stowed her wand in her bag, then looked ruefully at the torn page. Very carefully and lovingly, she put the book away.

_I'll have to mend it at home_, she thought, but she felt sickened by it all the same. Ripping a page in a book, and a library book at that – she never thought she was capable of such an atrocity. Then an even more catastrophic problem occurred to her: _But will I remain invisible? And for how long?_ Hermione envisioned raising her hand in class, unseen. She would be marked absent, something which had only happened once, when she had been really ill with the measles. Having read about accidental magic, she thought she must now be visible again, since the danger was past, but to be sure, she walked confidently into school and waved to the first professor she saw. He smiled and returned the wave. Catastrophe averted.

However, Hermione reprimanded herself for her incautious use of magic. It was so unlike her and, in fact, was almost breaking the rules. Being invisible, though – what a useful trick! As long as it never occurred during classes.


	2. To Hogwarts and Beyond

Hermione could not believe that she was here, in reality, on the Hogwarts Express, carrying a wand and a trunk full of spell-books, sporting wizards' robes and a breathless smile. She was surrounded by other witches and wizards her age, by the tingling sensation of a place crammed with magic, and yet a sliver of doubt, of uncertainty, nagged at the corner of her mind. Her smile slipped a fraction of a centimeter as the unbidden though flashed through her mind, _What if I don't belong here, either?_ But she pushed it aside. Hermione Granger was quite, quite sure of herself. She always had been. She clutched Hogwarts, a History to her chest and looked about. Owls fluttered from shoulder to shoulder, hooting to their familiars, and cats of every colour wound about their owners' legs. She saw a round-faced boy chasing ineptly after a toad bent on escape.

Hermione hopped down from the doorway in which she had paused, after stowing her trunk on the train, giving the great, brass station clock a glance. Three minutes till departure. She swiftly kissed her teary-eyed mother and father in farewell.

"Don't worry; I'll send you plenty of owls (that's the only way to send post, you know, so don't be alarmed). I'll tell you all about Hogwarts and keep you updated on classes and everything."

"Take care of yourself, dear. Don't eat too many sweets," was all the weepy Mrs. Granger could think to say. Hermione's parents were dentists.

"And don't forget to brush and floss regularly. I slipped an extra box of floss in your trunk, in case you forgot."

"Don't worry, Dad. I'll remain extremely hygienic. I am your daughter after all."

Mr. Granger laid his hand on his daughter's shoulder. So young, so precocious. "We love you, darling."

"I love you, too, Daddy." She hugged him. "And you, Mum." Mrs. Granger could only sniff in reply. The train whistle blew.

"Well, I've got to run. Goodbye! I'll see you at Christmas!" And she boarded the train, dashed to the compartment where her trunk was stowed, and leant out the window slightly to wave as the Hogwarts Express chugged out of the station.

Hermione watched London pass by as the train picked up speed, a whirlwind of emotions tumbling about inside her, excitement, eagerness, nervousness, wonderment. She shut the window and settled into her seat to begin the next chapter of Hogwarts, a History. This had recently replaced A Beginner's Spellbook as her favourite. She had just begun chapter fourteen: "A Rift Arises Among the Founders," when the compartment door slid open and Hermione glanced up. The boy she had seen chasing his toad earlier was standing awkwardly in the doorway.

"Have you seen a toad? His name's Trevor." It appeared the poor creature had got away, again.

"No, I'm sorry, but I haven't seen him." Hermione thought she would be able to return to her reading, but the boy slumped pitifully onto a seat and put his head in his hands.

"I've looked everywhere! This was the last compartment! I'm sure I've lost him for good this time, and Gran is sure to have a fit when she finds out." The toadless boy looked at Hermione in anguish. "He was a present from my Uncle Algie."

"Oh," was all Hermione said. She knew she ought to be more compassionate toward the boy, but his sniffling was not exactly an endearing sight. He wiped a pudgy hand on his robes and held it out to Hermione.

"I'm Neville, by the way. Neville Longbottom." Hermione shook Neville's hand briefly.

"Hermione Granger."

"Toads like to hide in dark, damp places, see, so I've been checking under all the seats, but he hasn't turned up." It appeared Neville would not very easily be got rid of.

"Well, we can look for him together, if you like. He's got to be somewhere."

Neville's face lit up. "Really? That's nice of you." Hermione did not think she was being all that nice. She really just wanted to go back to her reading, but she didn't seem to have a choice without being rude. So they set off down the corridor.

As they walked down the hall, asking if anyone had seen a toad, Hermione thought Hogwarts was going to be exactly like her old school. Students were dashing in and out of the compartments and pushing others out of their way. She was sure she saw a pale, blond-haired boy already bullying a couple timid looking girls. Through the next door, she could hear two boys arguing vehemently about whether football or quidditch was better. She rolled her eyes.

_Boys_, she thought. _They're always the same_.

Hermione slid open the door of the next compartment, in which only two boys were sitting, with a mound of sweets.

"Has anyone seen a toad? Neville's lost one," she said, before she registered that one of the boys, one with flaming red hair, had his wand out.

"We've already told him we haven't seen it," the red-headed boy said, clearly wanting her to go away, but Hermione didn't care.

"Oh, are you doing magic? Let's see it, then." Hermione thought this boy was also a first year, and she desperately wanted to make sure no one was already better than her. She sat down and stared intently. The boy looked vaguely pleased and nervous.

"Er – all right."

He cleared his throat. Hermione had to suppress a giggle.

"_Sunshine daisies, butter mellow_,

_Turn this stupid, fat rat yellow_."

He waved his wand in a random way. Nothing happened. Hermione frowned. Surely this boy was no competition at all.

"Are you sure that's a real spell?" she said doubtfully. "Well, it's not very good, is it?" she continued, condescendingly, and smiled. "I've tried a few simple spells just for practice and it's all worked for me." She said this with an air of innocence, as if she weren't indirectly insulting the boy, but she went on, now with a little more warmth, though she didn't know why she bothered to. "Nobody in my family's magic at all, it was ever such a surprise when I got my letter, but I was ever so pleased, of course, I mean, it's the very best school of witchcraft there is, I've heard – I've learned all our course books by heart, of course, I just hope it will be enough – I'm Hermione Granger, by the way, who are you?"

She said all this very fast, and blushed slightly at the end. She really didn't know why she was telling them all this. The boys looked stunned.

"I'm Ron Weasley," the redhead muttered.

"Harry Potter," said the other one, who had messy black hair and bright green eyes behind circular, wire-rimmed spectacles. He seemed very small, skinny, and keen to remain in the background.

Hermione's eyes widened, and now she could make out the lightning-shaped scar beneath his fringe. "Are you really? I know all about you, of course – I got a few extra books for background reading, and you're in _Modern Magical History_ and _The Rise and Fall of the Dark Arts_ and _Great Wizarding Events of the Twentieth Century_." Hermione hadn't realized that Harry Potter, _the_ Harry Potter, would be attending Hogwarts alongside her.

"Am I?" said Harry, looking slightly concerned.

"Goodness, didn't you know, I'd have found out everything I could if it was me," said Hermione, but cursed herself inwardly. That hadn't really made any sense, so she changed the subject abruptly. "Do either of you know what house you'll be in? I've been asking around, and I hope I'm in Gryffindor, it sounds by far the best; I hear Dumbledore himself was in it, but I suppose Ravenclaw wouldn't be too bad…" This thought depressed Hermione a bit. She had had enough of these exchanges. She wanted to go back to the solitude of her book now. "Anyway, we'd better go and look for Neville's toad. You two had better change, you know, I expect we'll be there soon," she said quickly and dashed off before Ron or Harry could say another word. Out in the corridor, Neville wanted her to continue looking for Trevor, but Hermione brushed him off, saying she had to go double check that everything was locked safely away in her trunk.

Back in the privacy of her compartment, Hermione sank into her seat with a sigh. Yes, Ravenclaw wouldn't be _too_ bad, but there was nothing interesting about being a Ravenclaw. "Smart" was all anybody had to say about Ravenclaw. They didn't have mysterious intrigue or a highly adventurous spirit. As much as she would try to deny it, as much as Hermione was a staunch believer in following the rules at all times, she really did want more out of life than studying. She wanted to do the things she read about in books. Of course, she didn't want to be in Slytherin, but at least they had personality. No, Hermione really – really, really in her heart – wanted to be placed in Gryffindor.

Presently, there was a loud yelp from one of the other compartments which shook Hermione out of her reflections. She jumped out of her seat and headed toward the commotion. The pale boy she had seen earlier was scurrying away from Harry's and Ron's compartment, accompanied by two very large boys. Why couldn't boys keep from making chaos for two seconds? Hermione, naturally curious, peeked into the compartment to find the floor littered with sweets. Harry and Ron both had their wands out.

"What _has_ been going on?" she asked, but Ron was examining his rat and neither of the boys paid her any attention. They began talking about the boy that had left, apparently called Malfoy. _Dreadful name_, Hermione thought absently.

"Can we help you with something?" Ron inquired rudely.

Hermione didn't really have an excuse for being there, so she said, "You'd better hurry up and put your robes on. I've just been up to the front to ask the conductor, and he says we're nearly there. You haven't been fighting, have you? You'll be in trouble before we even get there!" Boys really were so stupid.

"Scabbers has been fighting, not us," said Ron with a nasty scowl, and then in mock politeness, "Would you mind leaving while we change?" Hermione wondered why she had bothered to speak to them at all. She felt very put out and annoyed, and she wasn't quite sure why.

"All right – I only came in here because people outside are behaving very childishly, racing up and down the corridors." She was about to leave, but then turned back maliciously. "And you've got dirt on your nose, by the way, did you know?" she said, just to prove that she was better than stupid Ron Weasley.

The rest of the journey to Hogwarts castle passed uneventfully enough. Hermione ended up in the same boat as Neville, Harry, and Ron to cross the lake, but she ignored them. This wasn't difficult, as the sight of the castle completely took her breath away. Neville's toad turned up in one of the boats and suddenly the giant, Hagrid, was pounding on the oak front doors. Hermione seemed to be moving in and out of time. One moment it slid right by her, and then she was standing in front of the whole of Hogwarts, her legs trembling dreadfully, watching a tattered old wizard's hat sing. It seemed an hour before her name was called.

"Granger, Hermione!" came the fateful cry.

Wanting not to appear frightened of a silly, old hat, Hermione rushed to the stool and jammed it on her head. It fell right down over her eyes so she could not see all those anticipating faces, which was relief.

_Oho, what have we here?_ a voice said in her ear. This, she knew, was the sorting hat. She was very glad nobody else could hear the voice if it was going to examine her mind. _Very eager to learn, I see, talented, clever…_ Surely, the hat was flattering her. Hermione tried as best she could to exude bravery and a spirit of adventure. The hat seemed to know she was trying hard, because it said, _Oh, you'll have adventures, I'm sure. A bit lonely, though. Well then, very clear where to put you –_"GRYFFINDOR!"

Despite her exhaustion, Hermione could not fall asleep immediately that night, so she went down to the common room with Hogwarts, a History, but even reading failed to hold her interest for long. She kept hearing the sorting hat's words, "Oh, you'll have adventures, I'm sure." Well, that was a rather exciting prospect. Hogwarts certainly seemed to be bursting with adventures – magic, ghosts, for heaven's sake, she was living in a castle! It was like a fairy tale come true. But then it had said, offhandedly, "A bit lonely, though." Hermione felt indignant at these words. She was not lonely. She simply preferred the company of books to that of other people. People were so stupid and childish. Hermione yawned. Books were knowledge… yawn… and… and… yawn… oh, everything…

The winged armchair was very comfortable and the fire in the hearth had burned low, creating a soft, dulled atmosphere and throwing the room into shadow. Hermione's head nodded onto her chest, book still in hand…

The stone bridge arched over a vast, black lake, smooth as velvet. The reflections of a few stars twinkled in the water. The girl thought them very pretty and watched them winking at her in delight. She did not know why she was here, or even where here was, but she was not terribly bothered. The girl had lost her name to the wind. She simply was. Or perhaps she was not.

Presently, an echo of word from a faded memory found its way to the girl upon the wind. She did not know this word, yet it seemed very familiar to her. She tried to recall what it might be, but by this point, she knew very little. The word did not make itself heard again. Then the stars went out and it became very cold. The girl shivered and looked down into the lake, wishing to be comforted by the twinkling lights again. The water was black. Peering down at it, the girl now noticed something odd, though she had not seen it before. She could not see her face reflected in the lake. She was, in fact, entirely unsure of what her face looked like. Now that she gave it some thought, she could not ever remember seeing her face. The girl leaned over the edge of the bridge, straining to catch even a glimpse of herself in the dark waters below, but she could make out nothing. She stretched farther and farther out, till she unbalanced herself and was falling through the night, plummeting toward the surface of the lake. The immense blackness was swallowing her whole –

Hogwarts, a History fell to the floor with a thud and Hermione awoke with a start. She was breathing hard and felt as if she had just fallen through the sky into her chair. The common room was almost pitch black now. Only a few gleaming embers were left in the fireplace, but they gave the room no warmth. It no longer seemed an inviting place, but cold and eerie. Hermione scooped up her book and dashed back up to the first years' dormitory. Throwing off her dressing gown, she clambered into bed as quickly and quietly as possible. She nearly pulled the bedsheets over her head, but felt that would be extremely childish. She could not remember what she had been dreaming about, but it left her with an unsettled feeling in the pit of her stomach. The edges of her mind seemed to fade into dark, unknown regions.

Hermione looked around at the other girls in the dormitory, all sleeping soundly, untroubled. Somehow, this comforted her. Perhaps it was simply the magic of Hogwarts, but she drifted off again almost immediately, and this time it was into a peaceful, dreamless sleep.


	3. Books, Brooms, and Baboons

Chapter Three

Chapter Three: Books, Brooms, and Baboons

The next few weeks passed in a blur. Hermione was mastering spells faster than she thought possible, and found herself glowing with pride during each lesson (except, perhaps, in potions, due not to a substandard performance on her part, but to Professor Snape's refusal to acknowledge her brilliance). After one particularly good Transfiguration lesson, Professor McGonagall asked Hermione to stay behind. When all the other students had left, Hermione approached the teacher's desk, with just a little apprehension.

McGonagall closed the door in her brisk way, turning to Hermione as she said, "Miss Granger."

"Yes, Professor?"

McGonagall sat at her desk, very upright. "Have a biscuit."

Hermione was a little taken aback, but she obediently took a biscuit from a tin that looked as though the professor had had it since the 1870s and only ever dipped in once or twice. She did not eat it.

"Miss Granger." McGonagall arranged her face into an expression somewhat less stern than usual. "You have, I take it, read all the course books already?"

"Oh yes! I've studied them very carefully."

McGonagall nodded approvingly. "I have prepared a list of additional books which might be useful to you." She passed Hermione a long sheet of parchment. Hermione read the list greedily.

"All of these may be found in the school library." Then the professor paused, unsure how to proceed. "Miss Granger, you are a remarkable student."

Hermione's cheeks flushed with pride. "Thank you, Professor."

"In fact, you are perhaps the quickest student I have ever had at Transfiguration." McGonagall seemed to be having trouble getting her tongue around such words of praise. "It is my opinion that if you continue to take your schooling seriously, I have before me the makings of a very great witch."

Hermione very nearly burst, but only said again, sounding a bit as though she'd been strangled, "Thank you, Professor."

Then Professor McGonagall's mouth twitched and did something very peculiar. She smiled – a very rare, complete smile, which looked as if it had taken all of the professor's concentration. She quickly dropped the smile, however, rising, and regained her brisk composure.

"Run along now. Don't be late for dinner."

Hermione did not trust herself to speak. She dashed out of the classroom, grinning wider than she ever had in her life, and celebrated in the hall with a mad sort of little dance. Luckily, no one else was about.

Hermione was very busy with schoolwork, and happy for it. There was nothing Hermione liked better than learning, but she hadn't enough schoolwork to keep her occupied all week-end. Of course, she could pleasantly spend hours in the library, simply reading through one book after another, but there were days when she just did not know what to do with herself. The first Sunday, for example, she was at a loss. She had finished all her week-end homework on Saturday and spent the rest of the time in the library. She felt she ought to get some fresh air while the good weather lasted, and so she took a long walk around the grounds, finally settling in the shade of an enormous oak with Hogwarts: A History. She had already finished it, but she wanted to go over a few passages again.

Two paragraphs in, however, she was disrupted by the laughter of several older students who were baiting the giant squid which inhabited the lake. They threw pieces of toast to it and tickled its tentacles. They seemed to be having a great deal of fun. Just then, the Weasley twins appeared in characteristic cacophony, having a good romp and throwing a Fanged Frisbee at one another. Hermione watched them absentmindedly. Presently, the Fanged Frisbee rocketed toward her, snarling, and landed viciously in the tree just above her head. Fred and George ran over, laughing riotously, and pulled the offending item out of the trunk.

"Sorry about that…er –"

Hermione blinked, realizing they did not know her name.

"Hermione Granger," she supplied.

"Sorry about that, Hermione," one of the twins said without care, and they were off again.

Hermione did not know what it was about this encounter that unsettled her, but she suddenly decided that she had had enough fresh air. She snapped her book shut and retired to the library once again.

The only lesson in which Hermione did not excel was flying. She was very nervous about this to begin with, because it was not something one could learn out of a book (not that she hadn't tried). This was something which took natural skill, and Hermione had never been very athletic. Also, she wasn't too keen on racing about, twenty meters in the air, supported only by a thin, wooden rod. The statistics on injuries were astronomical, and she could not believe such a dangerous practice had for so long been considered good sport. Hermione had never before been tempted to skive off class, nor had she ever wanted to shrink into the background more than the morning of the flying lesson. Still, she told herself that she was a Gryffindor and must live up to her house's reputation.

When they were all assembled beside rickety school brooms, which certainly inspired no confidence in Hermione (they had probably got them around the same time Professor McGonagall had purchased that tin of biscuits), the hawk-like Madame Hooch strode up and down the pitch in the brisk air, instructing them on the proper way to mount a broom and so forth. Hermione's broom did not leap up into her hand the way Harry's and Malfoy's did - the first time any student had accomplished a professor's task before her. Hermione's broom would do nothing but roll over lazily, no matter how many times she cried, "Up!" in different intonations. In the end, she simply snatched it off the ground in chagrin, as several others, including Neville, had done. Madame Hooch did, however, tell her she had mounted her broom the right way, unlike Malfoy. Hermione's anxiety was building by the second, and when a distraction came in the form of Neville shooting off like a rocket, she had to admit she was bit relieved. However, when Neville slid off his broom and fell to the ground with a sickening crunch, Hermione's worst fears were confirmed. Flying was branded, in her opinion, as a highly dangerous activity.

"None of you is to move while I take this boy to the hospital wing! You leave those brooms where they are or you'll be out of Hogwarts before you can say 'Quidditch.' Come on, dear."

Hermione was only too happy to comply, but apparently Malfoy and Harry did not feel the same.

(That was when her trials with Harry and Ron really began. It was to define her years at Hogwarts: trying to keep two senseless boys out of trouble. Well, usually Harry was their reckless leader, pig-headedly flying into disaster at every turn, but Ron, as his trusted advisor, egged him on, no matter the consequences. Of course, Hermione knew none of this at the time.)

Of course, the minute they were left alone, Malfoy had to go and do something nasty, like stealing Neville's Remembrall. Shockingly, Harry – small, skinny, quiet Harry, Harry Potter, who had been unwantingly thrust into the spotlight and tried so desperately to blend into the walls – Harry stepped forward to play the hero.

"Give that here, Malfoy," he said, and Hermione, with fascination, heard the low note of warning in his voice.

"I think I'll leave it somewhere for Longbottom to find – how about – up a tree?"

On the one hand, Malfoy was a rotten little snot and ought to be taught a lesson. On the other hand, Madame Hooch had laid out the law in no uncertain terms. Brooms expulsion. There was no contest. And she would probably take points from Gryffindor, too.

_Why, why, WHY_, Hermione thought, _must boys be so stupid?_

"No!" Hermione stepped in front of Harry, blocking his way. "Madame Hooch told us not to move – you'll get us all into trouble…" But before she had finished, Harry darted around her and mounted his broom.

Hermione closed her eyes and waited for the horrible thud of one of the boys falling to the ground, but it did not come, so she chanced a look. Malfoy and Harry were merely two specks in the sky. Ron was cheering Harry on. Hermione felt like smacking him. Encouraging rule-breaking was just as bad as engaging in it.

Suddenly, Malfoy was speeding back toward the group of students. Harry, however, was diving straight down. He was going to crash! Somebody stop him! Where was an authority figure when you needed one!?

But Harry did not crash. He pulled the broom up short half a meter from the ground and jumped off, albeit a bit shakily. He was holding something above his head, like a proclamation, like a trophy…

It was Neville's Remembrall.

Boy, was Harry Potter stupid.

Then, of course, Professor McGonagall showed up and all was right with the world. Hermione felt that Harry would get just what he deserved for breaking the rules (and perhaps endangering his life), though she really hoped he wouldn't be expelled.

Harry was at dinner though, and he and Ron were sitting close by Hermione, who overheard every word they said (Ron was such a loudmouth). Indignation coursed through her. Not only had Harry not been expelled, not been given detention, and not had a single point deducted. He had, in fact, been rewarded for his mischief! And wasn't he just so smug about it. Then, to ice the cake, he goes and challenges Malfoy to a _duel_ at _midnight_. This was simply too much. She had to say something, and she did.

"I couldn't help overhearing what you and Malfoy were saying –"

"Bet you could," said Ron, that little louse.

No, she couldn't help it, because you couldn't keep your big, fat gob shut.

" – and you _mustn't_ go wandering around the school at night, think of the points you'll lose Gryffindor if you're caught, and you're bound to be. It's really very selfish of you."

But of course they paid her no attention. Harry and Ron would do whatever they pleased. Some people just had a penchant for breaking rules whenever possible.

After the fiasco of the midnight duel, Hermione vowed never to speak to Harry and Ron again as long as she lived. It was a miracle they hadn't been caught, and she certainly wasn't going to be taking any more risks. The sorting hat had been right – she _was_ having adventures, but she felt she had now had quite enough of them.

But that did not last long. It seemed that as long as she was at Hogwarts, Hermione would be in danger of committing acts of mischief no matter how very hard she endeavored to prevent them. And Harry and Ron were, in main, the cause.

On Halloween, Professor Flitwick decided the class was ready to attempt levitation. Unfortunately, fate designed that Hermione be paired with perhaps the most obnoxious partner possible: Ron Weasley. She tried, she really did, to help him with his abysmal wandwork, but the poor, stupid boy was doomed. He just kept flailing his lanky arms like a deranged primate. Hermione, of course, managed to levitate her feather flawlessly. She was feeling relatively contented when she left class, if a little vexed with the red-headed twit. That was when she heard Ron telling a gaggle of boys how she, Hermione, was, "A nightmare, honestly," and saying with contempt, "She must've noticed she's got no friends."

Hermione's face flushed, and she felt suddenly and violently that she was going to be sick. Pushing roughly past Ron and the others, she dashed into the girl's lavs and barricaded herself in a stall.

This could not be right. She had never felt like this before. She was having trouble breathing, and she was sweating copiously, and her heart was beating at a quite abnormal gallop, and her legs had turned all funny and wobbly and wouldn't hold her up anymore. So she slumped down the side of the stall onto the cold, hard tile, wishing she could just disappear. Her mind barraged her with memories:

The sorting hat invading her private thoughts. _Oh, you'll have adventures, I'm sure. A bit lonely though…_

The Weasley twins running up to her laughing. "Sorry about that … er–"

"… A nightmare, honestly. She must've noticed she's got no friends…"

"She must've noticed she's got no friends."

"… she's got no friends."

"… no friends."

_What is a friend? Am I a friend?_

_A friend ought to know one's name._

A friend.

Parvati Patil waved jauntily to her friend Lavender Brown as they were separated by the large crowd in the corridor. "No, no, go down without me. I'll be there in a minute. I've just got to go to the loo." She needed to preen before going down to the Great Hall for the Halloween feast. As she stepped in, no one else appeared to be in the room, but something felt rather odd. Parvati paid no attention and went to the mirror. Leaning up against it to inspect her face, however, she heard a sort of sniffling sound. She'd _thought_ there was no one in there, but that was definitely the sound of someone crying. Parvati scanned the gaps beneath the stall doors. No feet.

"Hello?" No answer. "Is anyone in here?" Still no answer, but she could not ignore the sobs, so she inched toward the stall they seemed to be coming from. She was sure someone was in there, but she must have been standing on the toilet. This was all becoming a bit eerie. "A-Are you alright?" Parvati said, hesitantly reaching her hand out to open the door, but she stopped short as a voice came from within the stall.

"Who are you?" it demanded.

A cold shiver ran up Parvati's spine, and she did not answer, but stood like a statue.

"Are you a friend?" The voice reverberated around the tiled room.

Parvati did not know how to answer. How was she to know if she was her friend if she did not know who was in the stall? But a strange fear kept her from simply pushing the door open to find out, so she replied, shakily, "Yes. Yes, I'm a friend. What's the matter?"

"You're not a friend!" the voice said, and it sounded angry, frightened, betrayed. Her yells were bouncing off the walls. Parvati began to back away.

"Go away!" the voice sobbed.

Parvati was slowly backing toward the door.

"GO AWAY!" the voice shouted, and it seemed magically magnified so that it shook Parvati's whole body.

"GO AWAY!" Parvati could take no more. It felt as if her head would split open from the sound. She snatched her bag off the floor and dashed out of the lavatory, hearing, just before the door shut, a faint, "You're not a friend…"

The corridor was empty but for a lone straggler headed for the Great Hall. Parvati wasted no time, but flew by him, very eager indeed to get as far from the wretched place as possible. And to relay her story to Lavender, with the comfort of a good feast to make it all seem silly and exaggerated.

Hermione was sitting on a toilet, miserably alone and softly sobbing, hardly aware of her surroundings, when _something_ entered the restroom, a something with gray, horned feet roughly the size of desks. She froze. She _thought_ those were the feet of a mountain troll. Then she opened the stall door and _knew_ they were the feet of a mountain troll. Then the troll looked at her.

Then she screamed.

After that, the world was more or less completely incoherent. Hermione knew she was in terrible danger, but her brain had jammed with blind terror, and her movements seemed slow and laboured, as if underwater. The hideous creature blundered toward her in ridiculous slow-motion. Hermione dropped to her knees and flung her arms over her head. She may have been yelling, "MUM! DAD! GOD! MERLIN!" but she was not sensible enough at the time to remember. Perhaps somewhere in there she yelled for Harry Potter, for, when she didn't appear to be getting crushed or eaten, or dying in any way, she looked up cautiously, and what she saw astonished her. Harry Potter was flying! Without a broom! He landed on the shoulders of the thing, which began to storm about, knocking sinks off the wall and shattering floor tiles. Then Ron Weasley, that stupid loudmouth, appeared, his wand out, and it seemed that light radiated from him, his hair suffused with a golden halo, flapping his arms like white wings.

"_Wingardium Leviosa_!" he cried. The troll's own club was jerked out of its stubby fingers and levitated above its head, as if by invisible strings. For a second that contained an eternity, the club floated there gently, all parties staring at it, open-mouthed. Then the club dropped suddenly, as though the invisible strings had been cut. The troll swayed, and then fell flat on its ugly face.

Hermione experienced a sort of paroxysm of relief and let out all the breath she hadn't realised she'd been holding. She very nearly fainted, but settled for bracing her back against the wall and gasping for air.

When she came to her senses, and almost had the restored use of her limbs, she stood, clutching and clawing at a sink, and surveyed the wreckage. The fullness of this dreadful chaos now hit her, in the form of a most putrid stench. The troll lay still where it had fallen. Harry was pulling his wand from the creature's nose, and Ron was frozen with his wand in the air.

Wanting to at least have all the facts, Hermione asked with trepidation, "Is it – dead?" She had not yet regained her composure.

"I don't think so," said Harry, "I think it's just been knocked out."

"Oh," she said faintly. She realised she was trembling and tried to be still.

Suddenly, the gleaming angel of rationality, Professor McGonagall, burst through the door, with Professors Snape and Quirrell in tow. They were all gaping at the scene in horror. Now Hermione's mind snapped to attention. In a moment, one of them was going to demand an explanation. The whole affair was quite jumbled, but there were two things Hermione did grasp: one, Harry and Ron had saved her life, so she owed them, in a big way; two, in an almost heroic moment of panic, Ron had mastered _Wingardium Leviosa_, and Hermione had to forgive him for all his past transgressions.

"What on earth were you thinking of?" Professor McGonagall was white to her lips, which were pressed together in a thin line. "You're lucky you weren't killed. Why aren't you in your dormitory?"

Hermione squared her shoulders and prepared to undertake a most unpleasant task, but Harry and Ron had just rescued her from a four meter tall mountain troll. She couldn't let them take the blame.

"Please, Professor McGonagall – they were looking for me."

"Miss Granger!"

The shock and disappointment in her voice practically broke Hermione's spirit, but she pushed on.

"I went looking for the troll because I – I thought I could deal with it on my own – you know, because I've read all about them." Oh, how could she be blaming her precious books for such miscarriage of judgment? She thought perhaps the professor wouldn't believe it, but McGonagall seemed to accept her story, wearily, mourning the loss of another bookish treasure to that adventurous Gryffindor spirit which so often ruined their school careers, or their faces.

"Well – in that case… Miss Granger, you foolish girl, how could you think of tackling a mountain troll on your own?"

Hermione stared at her shoes, playing the part of the guilty miscreant.

"Miss Granger, five points will be taken from Gryffindor for this. I'm very disappointed in you. If you're not hurt at all, you'd better get off to Gryffindor tower. Students are finishing the feast in their houses."

Hermione did not look at any of them as she performed her walk of shame. The moment she was clear of the place, she started running. She ran all the way to Gryffindor tower without stopping, thinking as little as possible.

She succeeded in entering the common room casually and waited by the door for Harry and Ron. When they got there, she found all she could manage to say was, "Thanks," and then she realised she was starving and rushed off to get dinner.

It seemed a given that Hermione was now accepted as one of them, the dynamic duo turned triumvirate. They were friends.

Uncharacteristically, Hermione entirely forgot what had happened earlier that day and, had you asked her, she could not have given you any reason but the ordinary one for being in the lavatories.


	4. Something Wicked this way Comes

Chapter Four

Something Wicked this way Comes?

The night of the Mountain Troll Misadventure, and for many nights to come, Hermione slept peacefully, and if she dreamed, they were pleasant dreams of books and sunlight, bouquets of quills and peerless parchment, or ordinary nightmares about exams. Her first year at Hogwarts was the happiest of her life, marred only slightly by the threat of He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. It was easy to forget that vague threat, though, when our heroic trio won Gryffindor the House Cup, for Hermione had not been there when Dumbledore told Harry that Voldemort was not gone, and perhaps never would be for good. Clever though she was, Hermione's young mind could not foresee the dark storm clouds brewing in the distance. So it was with bright eyes and a wide grin that she returned to her parents in June, and the Grangers rejoiced to find that their daughter had finally been accepted for exactly who she was.

So another year passed, as wild and wonderful as the first, and if it was a little stranger, well, it was all part of belonging to the magical world, and it was not Hermione who returned from the Chamber of Secrets covered in blood and blackest ink.

Third year was not a good one.

Hermione spent a very enjoyable majority of the summer holidays in France, her first exposure to the wider world, but found, upon returning, the wizarding world in a whirling fit of apprehension.

She had begun taking the _Daily Prophet_ ("It is _so_ good to keep up with current wizarding affairs.") and did not fail to notice, nor fail to mark the implications of, the escape of that most infamous murderer, Sirius Black. Surely, only powerful dark magic could defy the dementors of Azkaban? If the stories were to be believed, Sirius Black had been You-Know-Who's right hand man. And to kill thirteen with a single curse? What could this mean? Did someone help Black escape? Could it be _him_? This was certain: the wizarding world had worked itself into a frenzy, the like of which had not been seen in twelve years.

Diagon Alley was plastered with wanted posters, all displaying the escaped convict, his sunken eyes staring out of the parchment like burning coals, framed by a mass of filthy, matted hair. His cheeks were hollow, his face concave, lifeless. He looked inhuman, like a wax figure of a person.

A few days before start of term, Hermione came down to breakfast and face-to-face with Sirius Black.

"Eek!" She hopped back and clutched a chair for support.

Mr. Granger slowly emerged from his newspaper with a furrowed brow, then looked at the front page, taken up entirely by a photo of Black and the words "Serial Murderer Sighted in Surrey." A small, concerned frown appeared in the corner of his mouth.

"A bit shocking, isn't it?" The eyes of the Sirius Black in the muggle paper were, of course, not moving, but they were just as unsettling. "Sight of him's enough to make you jump, indeed."

Hermione nodded vaguely, snatching the paper from her father's hands, and immediately flipped to the article. Yes, there it was in plain ink: "Black … convicted murderer … armed and extremely dangerous … do not approach..." Hermione was thinking quickly. If the muggles had been informed, the situation was very serious indeed, and it looked like they were no nearer catching him than they had been all summer, no matter how many sightings and tips they got.

"…want two or three?"

Hermione's eyes slid off the article and up to her mother, who was hovering over her with a frying pan. Hermione's mouth was hanging open slightly.

"T-two or three what?"

"Bacon, darling," said Mrs. Granger, indicating the frying pan and looking concerned.

"Oh. Two?"

Mrs. Granger tipped two strips of bacon onto Hermione's plate.

"You've hardly touched your eggs. They must be stone cold."

The eggs were very cold indeed, but Hermione did not care. It was just past nine; the _Daily Prophet_ should be arriving any minute, and if there was an article on Sirius Black, which there was bound to be, she would have to find a reason to get that paper upstairs without her parents noticing that this dangerous convict was even more dangerous than they thought. They wouldn't want her going to Diagon Alley alone, nor staying at The Leaky Cauldron, which she had been so looking forward to. And she wouldn't want them worrying about her. _She_ knew that she was perfectly safe at Hogwarts, but her parents, being muggles, simply couldn't understand that wherever Albus Dumbledore was, was probably the safest place on earth.

"Sweetie?" Mr. Granger's nose was poking over top of an article about the love affairs of the local zoo primates.

"Yes?" Hermione squeaked, panicked.

"May I have my paper back?" he asked with an amused smile.

"Sorry!" Hermione tittered nervously and stuffed the paper into her father's hands. "Monkeys," she explained, pointing at the article.

"Ah, yes! Let's see what Clive and Archibald have been up to, the little devils!" Mr. Granger sounded genuinely interested.

Presently, there came a tapping at the kitchen window. It was the _Daily Prophet_ delivery owl. Hermione leapt up, tripping over a chair in her attempt to reach the window first. She succeeded, cracking the window open just enough to slip five Knuts into the pouch on the owl's leg and take the newspaper, which she tucked under her arm. She then returned stiffly to her seat and proceeded to shovel her eggs and bacon in her mouth. Her mother was washing dishes, but kept sneaking suspicious glances at her. Mr. Granger was absorbed once again in his paper.

After draining off a glass of orange juice in one gulp, Hermione stood abruptly. Mrs. Granger, now sitting at the table with a cup of tea, perusing the home and garden section, looked up.

"I've just remembered – I forgot to put the conclusion on my Charms essay! How stupid of me!" and she turned, almost reaching the kitchen door, before –

"Hermione." Mrs. Granger was looking at her with eyebrows raised.

"Y-yes?" Hermione turned around with a false smile.

"Something isn't right here."

"W-whatever could you mean?"

"Don't you go trying to sneak away."

"From what?"

Mrs. Granger sighed.

"Hermione, please. Wash your dishes. How many times have I got to tell you?"

Hermione almost laughed out loud with relief.

"Oh! The dishes! Yes, the dishes! How could I forget?" She washed her plate and glass as fast as she could manage, although this was made rather the more difficult by the newspaper still clamped tightly under her arm.

"Okay. All done. Going up to my room to work on my Potions essay now. Best not to disturb me for a while. So I can concentrate. On my schoolwork." Hermione smiled and nodded her head as she exited the kitchen. "Bye," she added awkwardly. Mr. and Mrs. Granger, however, did not seem to notice anything queer. They had become somewhat accustomed to strange behavior. Compared to the rest of the wizarding world, their daughter was positively boring.

* * *

After dashing up the stairs, Hermione shut the door to her room very slowly and leant against it, her heart beating rather quicker than usual.

_So Sirius Black is in the muggle papers._

There was, in and of itself, nothing all that strange about this. A deranged murderer on the loose – it only makes sense to warn the muggles, and yet … Hermione could not help feeling that they had somehow betrayed her trust, to bring Sirius Black (and by proxy Voldemort, and all the dark mysteries of the wizarding world) here, into her parents' home, which should be safe and bright and boring – a home that could not even imagine what Death Eaters were capable of. Hermione had never told her parents of the dangerous escapades she'd been involved in, never told them how magic could be used in horrible, twisted ways. (She reasoned to herself that this was not really lying, and anyway it was for their own good). Yet there was Sirius Black, staring out of a regular newspaper which was delivered every morning by a pimply boy on a bicycle, in _her_ kitchen, being perused by _her_ father.

Hermione shook open _The Daily Prophet_, only to be confronted by those eyes once again. She felt sick. She wanted to cry. Why was she reacting this way? Instead, she tossed the paper in the bin and took out _Hogwarts: a History_, settling onto her bed for a long, comforting read.

* * *

On the morning of August 31st, Hermione said goodbye to her parents outside The Leaky Cauldron. They smiled. They were not worried. (That is a lie. Of course they worried. They are _parents_. More accurately – the specific words _mass murderer_ and _Sirius Black_ were not thought of). Hermione reassured them she would owl and floss, and they hugged and kissed her and gave her twenty pounds for her birthday. Everything was fine. They were fine.

They were not fine. As soon as they turned the corner at the end of the block, Hermione knew she would never see them again. She had a sudden premonition – he would blast their car off the road (what did _he_ care who saw, how many he killed?) – she could hear screeching metal, shattering glass, screams, and then – he would rip the top right off and there would be her mother and father, exposed. How could she have been so stupid? Knowing there was a mass murderer (one who would do anything, _anything_ God-knows-what, to a muggle) running around London, Surrey (could he apparate? Does he have a wand?). She should have stopped to think. She shouldn't have been seen with her parents (obvious muggles – their clothes, their car – how could they be anything else?). She was endangering them. Of course, muggle-borns were a prime target, sullying their purity. No, he'll wait till they get home. He'll follow them to the street she grew up on… and kill every single one, the whole neighborhood. He'll wipe them out for associating with her, like eradicating cancer. Maybe he doesn't have a wand. Maybe he will use a knife. Or his bare hands. There would be blood, gobs and spatters and pools of blood. It wouldn't stop at her door – it would trail all down the sidewalk, marking his path from house to house, crisscrossing the street… And it would be all her fault, because she hadn't had the forethought (why now, when it was so vital, was logic failing her?) to go by herself to London? There would be nothing strange about that, and all of it would have been avoided. She could have kept them safe!

But no. She was being ridiculous. She was letting her heart interfere with her good sense. It was a one in a million chance. It was ridiculous. Besides, he had been seen just a few days ago in Surrey.

Hermione gave herself a mental shake. She was being stupid. This was not her. This was not intelligent. She pushed her worries to the back of her mind and forced them into a cabinet.

Hermione resisted the urge to run all the way home again straightaway, took a deep breath, and entered the Leaky Cauldron. It was very crowded and the light was, typically, dim and dusty, but Weasleys are not easily hid, and several of them became immediately apparent, like poppies in a wheat field, congregating round Mr. Weasley, who was making a valiant effort to read his paper.

Hermione was so pleased to see them, she fairly galloped over and flung her arms around a very confused Ron, which was more difficult than it would have been last year as he had grown at least [three in.] over the summer. When she pulled away, his ears were red, and he grinned a goofy, Ron sort of grin.

"How was your summer?"

"What was Egypt like?" they asked at the same time.

"Oh, it was great!" they said simultaneously.

They laughed awkwardly. At that moment, however, they were saved the awkwardness of reunion by Mr. Weasley, who had beamed when he saw Hermione.

"Ah, Hermione! How nice to see you! Had a good holiday?" he asked, but did not seem terribly interested in the answer.

"Oh, yes, it was brilliant. We went to France."

Mr. Weasley was looking around and behind Hermione.

"Excellent. Excellent … You're, ah, parents haven't come along, then?"

_He knows_.

"Oh. No, they had … something to do. Work."

_He can see it in my eyes._

"Oh, I had hoped to ask them about the muggle tooth business, but nevermind, nevermind."

_He's trying to get me to confess. It's all my fault. I should have come alone-_

"Come on! Let's go." Ron was tugging at her sleeve. Hermione blinked at him, but could not formulate a sentence.

"We've got to go before Mum notices."

Hermione still did not speak. The wonderful, wonderful familiarity of Ron, and his doing something reprehensible, was overwhelming

"Dad, we're going to get our books and stuff."

Mr. Weasley looked at his watch.

"Alright, but see that you're back by four o' clock or your mother will murder me."

They turned to go.

"And Ron."

Ron sighed and turned back. On closer inspection, Mr. Weasley looked very tired and a little troubled.

"You're going to meet up with Harry, I suppose?" he asked casually.

"Of course," Ron said, noticing nothing strange.

"Yes, yes. Take care you don't get separated. It's very crowded."

"I know, I know. Bye!"

"Er, bye, Mr. Weasley!" Hermione threw over her shoulder as Ron dragged her out back of the Leaky Cauldron, where lay the hidden entrance to Diagon Alley.

"Sorry about that. Dad's obsessed with muggle stuff. He'd talk your parents into oblivion… Er, which brick is it, again?"

It was not until this moment, when Hermione would have reached for her wand, that they both noticed Ron had hold of Hermione's hand. He dropped it very quickly, and Hermione pulled out her wand. She tapped the third brick on the left of the rubbish bin, and suddenly all other thoughts vanished.

Diagon Alley.

She was eleven again, and magic was fresh and exciting. Diagon Alley was a Dickens novel, a fairy tale, a dream, better than books or lessons or ice-cream – better than Shakespeare! Magical instruments sparkled under the bright sun. Witches and wizards of all shapes and sizes bustled about their shopping. There were puffs of smoke, dancing lights, odd smells, and sudden bangs and oh, how she loved it all!

But something was off. The witches and wizards of Diagon Alley were bustling a bit _too_ quickly about their shopping. Mothers were keeping their children a bit _too_ close, and many had their eyes locked on the cobblestones beneath their feet, or else looked over their shoulders every few steps. The cause was clear. From every shop window, where usually one would find a delightful array of magical doodads and whatsits, now the wanted poster of Sirius Black looked out on the passersby with alarming intensity, frighting the innocent shoppers to their cores.

Paranoia was catching, and Hermione felt the tingling sensation creep up her spine and tighten like a vice about her chest.

"You alright, Hermione?" Ron of the Iron Constitution, unaffected by (or unaware of) mass hysteria, merely looked a bit puzzled. "You seem … strange … er."

Hermione put on a bright smile.

"I'm fine. It's just being here again … Diagon Alley …"

Ron did not understand.

"I'm fine," she reassured him, and herself.

"Well," he said, never sure what to make of his brainy companion, "let's find Harry."


	5. In Which Hermione Acts her Age

Chapter Five

In Which Hermione is Thirteen

Ron wanted to go directly to Quality Quidditch Supplies, reasoning this was the most likely place to find Harry, but Hermione disagreed.

"Ron, we've only got a few hours, and a lot to buy. Harry must be doing his school shopping, just like we should be. You can look at extraneous sportsgear later."

Ron spluttered.

"Hermione, quidditch is not 'extraneous!'" He made little air quotes around this word. "You don't understand," he said, shaking his head at her.

"You can't afford half a broom handle."

Ron opened and closed his mouth in outrage, trying to find a counter-argument, but Hermione turned and set off for the robes shop.

Brilliant. Ten minutes in each other's company and already bickering like children. She had reduced herself to an insult worthy of Malfoy. Hermione pursed her lips; that had been mean. But it effectively put an end to the debate, and they didn't have time to argue, and besides, she was right. She agonised over her logic. So she was justified in insulting her friend (about a touchy subject, too, and one he couldn't help), because she was _right_? Because it meant she got her way? Hermione did not know why she was being so catty, and she didn't like it. She would make a point of being nicer to Ron. It wasn't his fault he was a boy.

Hermione entered Madam Malkin's first, with Ron shuffling along behind her, and quickly scanned the shop.

"Harry's not here. I wonder if he needs new robes. You certainly do, Ron; yours must be far too tight now."

Ron was glaring at the floor.

"Your arms must've burst right through the sleeves!"

Ron kicked a piece of lint.

"Oh look, they've got new styles! You can have belled or tailored sleeves!"

Ron shuffled to the rack with his hands in his pockets and continued his staring match with the floor. Madam Malkin bustled over.

"Which style do you like, dear?"

Hermione, very relieved for the distraction, responded immediately: "I'd like the tailored sleeves, please, and I'm ready to be fitted."

"Right this way. Bring that set with you, and we'll pin them up just right."

Madam Malkin left Hermione in front of enormous tri-fold mirrors and went to gather pins and measuring tape. Hermione stared anxiously at her reflection. Her small, oval face stared back at her, framed by an untamable cloud of hair, made worse by the humidity. She stood with her shoulders hunched slightly forward, in a baggy T-shirt she'd dug out of her closet. Until very recently, she'd never worried about mirrors or clothing, but this summer everything had suddenly changed.

It happened in France. Hermione had woken up early, because her mother had insisted they see the Eiffel Tower. Her father insisted they could get there before all the other tourists. She hopped into her jeans and yanked on a worn, blue tank top. Then she yanked again. It wouldn't sit flat. She shrugged and went to the boudoir to try to wrangle her hair into something manageable. She picked up the brush, looked in the mirror, dropped the brush. There were two, small _bumps_ beneath her tank top. She lifted the shirt up to be sure, and there they were. On her _chest_. Invaders! She had tumors! She was host to microscopic alien infestations! It was dark magic!

_Calm, calm,_ she told herself._ This is perfectly normal._ She stared at the _things_ with concern. Surely, that was not her own flesh. She poked one. It was sort of squishy. _Don't be stupid,_ she thought. _Skin is supposed to be sort of squishy._

Hermione closed her eyes and pulled her shirt back down. She opened her eyes and looked very hard into the mirror, then pulled the shirt down so it was as flat as possible. They certainly weren't invisible, but … Hermione glared at her reflection critically. They weren't really that noticeable. She turned to the side. If she squinted, it just looked like her tank top was bunched up a little. She decided she would not worry about it. Them.

Neither of the Granger adults mentioned Hermione's new deformity as they made their way along the Paris streets, but she was sure that everyone they passed noticed them. The growths. She refused to think of them as _breasts_. _Breasts_ were something _women_ got.

Her father had been right. Nobody was at the Eiffel Tower this early. Not even the ticket-taker. So Mr. Granger bought them croissants, and they sat on a bench until the national monument was open for business. Hermione tore her croissant into little bits and threw most of it to the pigeons. Finally, a surly man with a mustache arrived and begrudgingly sold them tickets. When they arrived at the top of the tower, the sun had risen, but it was being threatened by some very nasty-looking clouds. Mr. and Mrs. Granger walked around, arm in arm, oohing and aahing at all of Paris spread out below them and generally acting goopy and sickening. Hermione did not see what was so special about viewing a city from a higher altitude. It was all beginning to look like gray mush anyhow, now that it had started to drizzle.

Hermione plopped down on a bench, folded her arms over her chest, and sulked. She wished she'd brought a coat, and resented her mother for having had the sense to suggest it. The air up here was colder, and there was no sun, and it was raining, and she was at the top of a huge hunk of stupid metal.

"Don't you want to see Paris, sweetie?" her mother asked.

"Saw it."

"Are you cold?"

"No."

"I told you to bring a coat."

Hermione flung her arms out in exasperation. "I'm not cold. I'm just wet. It's raining."

Mrs. Granger looked surprised. Surely, she noticed it's raining. Then she covered her mouth with her hand, gave a tiny gasp, and giggled. She was biting her lip, obviously trying not to laugh.

"What? Why are you laughing at me?" Hermione was almost in tears.

"Oh, sweetie, it's just –" She switched to a stage whisper: "You're _poking out_."

Hermione's first thought was her wand.

"What? But I –"

Then she looked down.

The little _traitors_.

Hermione cried in earnest, then, and her mother wrapped her coat around her and told her father that Hermione felt ill.

"Girl stuff," Mrs. Granger confided when Hermione wasn't looking.

Mr. Granger felt it his duty to continue sight-seeing.

Then, of course, there was the harrowing business of the _lingerie_, a word Hermione was familiar with, but had never even contemplated using. On the whole, Mrs. Granger seemed much too pleased and hummed cheerily all the afternoon. Hermione, on the other hand, was mortified.

Now, she was wearing one of the "training" bras her mother had thought appropriate. What she was training _for_, Hermione did not know.

Madam Malkin returned.

"I'll have to take some measurements, first. You Hogwarts lot are just sprouting up like Sphinx Grass!" She gave Hermione's shoulder a maternal pat, then began to measure her – nape to ankle, shoulder to wrist. Ron had shuffled over and now stood quite near, staring at her in the mirror without really looking at her. Hermione gave him a look. Ron scratched his nose.

Then Madam Malkin looped the measuring tape round her chest. Hermione leaped backward.

"What are you doing?"

Madam Malkin blinked, confused.

"I told you, I've got to take your measurements, dear." Then understanding dawned on her, and she gave Hermione one of those infuriating, patronising smiles adults make when they think they know something which you are ignorant of. The older woman leaned close and spoke in what was meant to be a soft, comforting voice.

"We have ladies' underthings in another room-"

Hermione blanched, her eyes flicking toward Ron.

"No! I don't need- I mean I've already got- Do you have to take the measurements?"

Madam Malkin looked utterly perplexed.

"Ron!"

Ron jumped.

"Why are you just standing there? Go find a set of robes!"

Ron flushed.

"I'll find robes when I bloody well please!"

"Well we don't have all day!"

"Lucky I won't be taking up any of your precious time then!"

Hermione was so frustrated now that she was nearly crying. She was also being quite loud.

"What does _that_ mean?"

"I'm too _poor_ to buy new robes!" Ron yelled. There was a pause. "So there!" he concluded, and stormed out of the shop.

Hermione watched him go, stunned. Then she scrunched up her face and burst into tears. Madam Malkin hovered uncertainly behind her.

"Why are boys s-s-so stupid?" Hermione sobbed to no one in particular. "I didn't want things to change, but now I've been awful, and he'll – he'll _never_ forgive me! I just didn't want – But now I've – I've ruined _everything_!"

Hermione gave herself up to unabashed weeping. After a few moments, Madam Malkin put her hand on Hermione's shoulder.

"It's alright, dearie. They were only words," she said kindly. She began rubbing Hermione's back in little circles. "Merlin, if everyone was held accountable for everything they'd ever said! Well, we would all be very lonely."

Hermione was only hiccoughing slightly by now.

"Do you really think he'll forgive me?"

"Of course he will. You just give him a minute to calm down, and we'll fix up your robes in the mean time."

Hermione sniffled.

"Alright."

Madam Malkin measured and pinned deftly, all the while giving advice which Hermione did not very much listen to – she was too busy being nettled by her emotional outbursts and attempting to analyse the source. She came to the conclusion that it was as her mother had said – it was all due to hormones. Now that she had realised this, of course, she would have to be careful not to let her emotions get the best of her. The return to sound logic was very comforting.

When Hermione left, she found Ron standing awkwardly by the door of the shop.

"I'm sorry," they said at the same time, both looking at their shoes.

"I should've realised," Hermione started.

"I shouldn't have yelled," Ron admitted. "I was just, you know."

"I know."

They left it at that and moved off to buy books next.


	6. Hot & Cold

Chapter Six

Hot & Cold

Harry was not in Flourish and Blott's, nor was he in Simmer and Seethe, the apothecary. They went to Olivander's for Ron to get a new wand, but they did not expect to meet Harry, as he did not have Ron's persistent misfortune. Hermione even suggested they stop in at Quality Quidditch Supplies, but he was not there either. The sun was beaming down its most oppressive August heat, and they were carrying a great many packages, and it was nearly four o' clock. They had looked everywhere they could think of and had finally given it up as a bad job, when someone hailed them from the patio of Florean Fortescue's Ice Cream Parlour.

It was Harry, of course, his pale arms fairly glowing in the full sunlight. Hermione supposed that through years of being shut in a dark cupboard, the shadows had seeped into his skin permanently. It looked as if Harry had got one of every flavour Florean carried, and enjoyed them all, for he was surrounded by empty sundae dishes.

Ron and Hermione bounded over to him, grinning, and Hermione threw her arms around Harry. Unfortunately her arms were hung with shopping, and Harry had the uncomfortable sensation that he was being hugged by an over-decorated Christmas tree. Hermione began babbling immediately about how they were going spare trying to find him, and hadn't he bought his school things, they were leaving tomorrow morning, but Ron interrupted. He had simply dropped his bags next to a chair, which he flopped into.

"Blimey," he said, indicating the stack of bowls and spoons, "going for a world record? I hope you haven't cleaned them out. I'm starved."

Harry explained that Florean Fortescue himself insisted on giving him free sundaes every half hour, and had also turned out to be a great help with his History of Magic essay.

"Bet he loves having you sit in front of his shop," Ron said wisely. "You must attract loads of customers, Harry!"

"Don't be daft," Harry laughed.

"Right, like it has nothing to do with the fact that you're Harry Potter."

"Absolutely not," said Harry, looking offended. "It's just my natural charm."

Ron became quite serious.

"Harry, are you sure Lockhart didn't do something to your brain? You haven't got a stack of signed photographs, have you?"

Ron earned a playful cuff on the head for this remark, but he was prevented from retorting by the appearance of Fortescue, who turned out to be an excitable young man with curly black hair, clad in gauzy robes of lavender. He spoke with a hypnotic accent, pronouncing his words as if each was a delectable little sweet, and accompanied them with grand gesticulation. He proclaimed himself enchanted to meet Harry Potter's charming friends, told them they must call him Florean, and offered them anything they liked, free of charge. Hermione giggled. Ron stared and, without noticing what he was doing, ordered pineapple and sprout ice-cream. Harry twitched an eyebrow up at Ron, but said nothing.

As soon as Florean was out of earshot, Ron turned to Harry with his mouth hanging open slightly.

"Blimey, is he…?"

"Oh, Ron," Hermione scoffed, "don't be so plebian."

"Why on earth did you order sprout ice-cream?" Harry asked.

"I what?" said Ron. "That doesn't matter. Harry, you don't think he was, you know…" Ron could not bring himself to say it.

"What are you talking about?" said Harry.

"_You know_," Ron tried to indicate with a pained expression. Harry was completely bewildered. "A little more than friendly with you."

Hermione almost laughed out loud, because of course Ron would think something completely idiotic like that, but she stopped herself.

"Oh please!" she said, rolling her eyes. "Ron, that is utterly ridiculous. He is at least twice Harry's age."

Harry's face was blank and as white as bone. He had finally understood what Ron was getting at and was obviously horrified.

Ron looked like he was thinking hard.

"Oh, yeah. Well, I guess you're right."

"Please think about what you're saying before you open your mouth next time, Ron."

Ron noticed Harry's expression then.

"Oi, Harry, you alright? I was only joking, you know."

Harry swallowed several times before speaking.

"Ron," he began quietly, "you are an evil, evil person."

Ron was at a loss for words.

"Ugh," Harry said with a shudder, and shook his head, as though trying to shake Ron's suggestion out of it.

Just then, Florean reappeared, setting their ice-creams in front of them with several flourishes and a grin.

"Bon appetite!" he said and glided away.

Hermione immediately began shoveling ice-cream into her mouth to stifle her laughter. Harry was focusing very hard on eating his ice-cream, as though it were a difficult task. There was a short, immensely awkward silence. Then Ron said,

"Harry. Why did I order sprout ice-cream?"

Hermione felt, for that afternoon, that everything was right with the world. She did not know how important it would later come to be.

* * *

The next day dawned as different from the last as elves and goblins. The sun filtered very little through the dense mass of clouds, looking like purplish bruises on the sky and casting strange shadows over our heroes' faces. Harry's face, in particular, appeared approximately the colour of ashes. Hermione was glad that the Ministry had provided cars for getting to the station, though by the time they finally got into them, everybody was in quite a foul mood.

Ron had not taken to Hermione's new cat, Crookshanks, in the least, and simply being near the feline seemed to enrage him. Hermione would have had more patience, but as she was trying to put Crookshanks in his basket, he attempted a bolt for Scabbers, and Hermione ended up with several scratches. The twins were wreaking so much havoc that Mrs. Weasley dragged them to the car by their ears and forced them in ten minutes before everyone else. Percy was raging at everyone and even exclaimed several times that they were all in a conspiracy against him. Perhaps it was only the light from the moody sky, but both Harry and Mr. Weasley seemed very anxious.

Everyone was rather quiet in the car. Hermione stared absently out the window, watching the muggle scenery flash pass. It seemed so long ago that she had belonged to that world. No, not merely long ago, but never. She had never belonged, she realised. She realised also that she had always known this. "The real world," as it was to her then, had never held any interest for her. She recalled, with a smile such as one gives a child playing pretend, knowing she will all too soon have no need for play, the ways she had hidden from the world, in books, under her bed, in the secret space in her wardrobe. She had not needed to go there in years.

They arrived at King's Cross Station, discreetly slipped through the barrier between platforms nine and ten. Hermione hungrily drank in the familiar sights and sounds - hooting owls, the voices of her classmates (not all of them dear, but an assurance, nonetheless, that she belonged here), the scarlet steam engine (so wizardly in that it was more picturesque than convenient), and the tall, brass station clock, in which she could see everyone reflected, but strange and elongated like aliens in movies.

The train was about to leave. Mrs. Weasley had hugged and kissed them all. Their luggage was stowed away. Percy had gone off to be with his girlfriend, and the twins had gone off to plot with Lee Jordan. Hermione and Ron were standing by the door with Ginny, but they had suddenly found that Harry was not with them. The platform was full of parents waving goodbyes, but the rest of the students were all on board. Ginny tapped Hermione on the shoulder and pointed some distance away, to a corner of the platform.

"What's Harry doing over there with Dad?" she asked, because Hermione usually had the answers to everything.

"I don't know, but the train's about to leave," she said, more to herself than Ginny, and then called loudly, "Harry!"

Mrs. Weasley, alerted by Hermione's shout, looked round and found them out.

"Arthur! Arthur, what are you doing? It's about to go!"

"He's coming, Molly!" Mr. Weasley shouted back, but neither he nor Harry moved. He was whispering furiously to Harry.

The train creaked and groaned and began to inch forward.

"Arthur, quickly!"

Finally, Harry broke with Mr. Weasley and ran to the train, hopping in at the last moment. He shut the compartment door behind him, then turned round to look out the pane of glass and raised his hand in an oddly still farewell.

* * *

The sky blackened and rain began to fall, and Hermione felt cold and small and wished, for a brief moment, that she was not a witch - that there was no magic.

It simply was not fair. It was beyond not fair - it was cosmic injustice! Harry was one of Hermione's best friends. She knew him better than most everybody in the world. And she could see he was telling the truth when he said he was not afraid of Sirius Black. But Harry _should_ be afraid. Harry _should_ get to stop combating evil overlords and mass murderers, and be given the chance to be thirteen. Hermione glanced at him sadly. He did not wear the expression of a thirteen year old as he gazed out the window. He looked like a grim hero of legend. Hermione was reminded strongly of the bowman in _The Hobbit_, Bard, who slayed the dragon Smaug. It was too accurate a comparison for comfort.

Hermione was startled from these thoughts by sudden darkness. The train shuddered and came to an abrupt halt. She shivered. Was it just her or had it become unnaturally cold? She could see there was something moving outside the train, odd masses of more dense blackness than the surrounding night. Then ice crept over the glass, walling them into the compartment.

Hermione's heart was hammering in fear. There was something terribly wrong. She jumped up in a state of panic, intending to find an adult, and slammed into Ginny, who was coming in. All over the train, people seemed to be trying to get close to others, and colliding with them as she had. Neville came in and tripped over Harry. They were all arguing, when a new voice spoke decisively:

"Quiet!"

They all complied.

A face appeared out of the darkness - a tired, but not unkind, face, with the glint of sure-footed shrewdness in his eyes - illuminated by a handful of flames he'd conjured. It was the sleeping man who'd been there when they'd entered the compartment, Professor R. J. Lupin.

"Stay where you are," he said, and everyone went very still.

He made a move toward the door, but it slid open before he got there, revealing an enormous, horrible, cloaked thing.

It had one hand, if you could call it a hand, extended. It was rigid, colourless, and almost insectoid, as if it wore its skeleton on the outside. It drew a breath that sounded like a death rattle and seemed to suck every bit of life and warmth out of the air.

Hermione felt as if she'd been pierced in the heart by a dagger of ice, and she was falling, falling so far, into a vast, black lake. The water was cold and lifeless, and it seeped into her and turned her into part of itself. She was not aware of her own being, and she knew nothing, nothing but the cold emptiness in her.

But somebody was screaming.

Harry was yelling his head off.

Harry.

Hermione could not seem to remember why that name seemed familiar. She was dimly aware of movement around her. A tall figure was holding fire in his hand. Hermione pressed herself as far back in her seat as possible. _Get away from the fire!_ she thought. She needed to move closer to the source of the cold.

But the tall figure was in the way.

"None of us is hiding Sirius Black under our cloaks." The voice of the tall figure seemed very far away. "Go," it commanded. There was no movement. Then the figure hissed something and emitted a jet of liquid, silver light.

The light was searing hot. It was tearing the cold out of Hermione. It was agony -

And then it was over. Warmth returned to her tentatively, but she could still feel a shard of ice in her chest, making her draw breath in painful gasps.

And she could think properly again.

Harry. Harry had been screaming.

The lights were back on, and Harry was slumped on the floor, twitching.

Hermione gave a terrified shriek and rushed to him. Ron appeared on his other side, and they called Harry's name, shaking him, and soon he came to.

They were all very rattled, though Ron and Ginny and Neville seemed normal again after Professor Lupin gave them some chocolate. The professor did not have any chocolate himself. Hermione privately thought it would do him a lot of good. Harry looked as far away as she felt. Lupin explained about dementors, but other than that was very reserved. Hermione saw that he watched her and Harry more closely than the others, but each time his eyes fell on Harry, they expressed a thousand years of sorrow, and he looked quickly out the window.

Hermione tried not to think about what she'd felt in the presence of the dementor. The chocolate helped a bit, but she had the unsettling feeling she'd been to that lake before - been _in_ that lake that felt like the farthest reaches of space, not anything like water. But, besides being ridiculous (lakes were not made of black nothingness, get ahold of yourself), it was impossible - the only lake Hermione had ever been to was the lake on the Hogwarts grounds, and she had never even swam in it. No, this was different, like deja vu. She dismissed the idea that she might be a seer. Likely it was an amalgam of nightmares and imaginings of dark magic she'd read about in books and that time she'd got lost when she was six and sat on a bench for hours, too scared to ask anyone for help or even move.

When they finally arrived at Hogsmeade Station and everyone was standing and stretching, the dementors almost forgotten, Professor Lupin asked Hermione to stay for a moment.

"Go on," she told Ron, who was waiting for her by the door, "I'll catch up."

Ron frowned, but made no other protest and followed the others.

Lupin waited until they were out of earshot.

"It's Hermione, correct?"

"Yes. Hermione Granger."

Lupin nodded as if he already knew this.

"Are you ... alright, Hermione?" he asked kindly. "You look very shaken."

"Well. Yes." Hermione did not know how to express what had happened. "I mean, yes, it was ... horrible, but I'm fine now."

Lupin looked as if he wanted to say something. He knew she was not quite as "fine" as she professed to be.

"It was." What could she say? "Cold." Oh yes, Hermione, a very concise description. "It was like I became part of it and then I was ... didn't exist."

"I know what you mean," the professor said sadly. His eyes became introspective and sorrowful again. Hermione wondered what horrible things had happened in this man's past. And then something like hope flashed across his face.

"You'll feel better after a hearty feast." He patted her shoulder. "Now, don't make that boy wait for you too long." And he gave her a friendly wink, as if they shared a secret.

"What did the new professor want?" Harry asked.

"Well, that's obvious," Ron said. "'Spect he's already heard about Hermione's great genius."

"He just ... asked about my book," Hermione lied, holding up one she luckily had on hand.

Ron squinted at the book through the dark.

"Very keen on muggle literature, is he?"

"Yes," Hermione replied, quickly stowing the book, glad it was dark so they could not see her blushing. "Simply mad for muggle fiction, apparently."

"Well, I suppose it's a sign of genius," Ron theorised. "Dumbledore likes lemon drops."

Hermione nodded vaguely as they climbed in a carriage. She just wanted finally to be at Hogwarts, in Gryffindor tower, where she felt safe and comfortable. All of this would soon fade away, she thought, like a strange dream.


	7. Time May Change Me

Oh my goodness! It has been far, far too long! I must apologise profusely to anyone who was waiting for this! I'm so sorry! If any of you are still interested in this silly old tale of mine - thank you! First I was going out of my mind with school, and then I had some medical problems, but! you shan't have to wait half so long for the next chap! Eight is already like half written! And I've missed you all terribly! I'm so glad to be back! :3

* * *

Time May Change Me…

Professor McGonagall was waiting for them in the entrance hall.

"Potter! Granger!" she called over the clamour of students. "I want to see you both!"

Hermione and Harry exchanged a look – _I didn't do anything. Did you?_

"There's no need to look so worried – I just want a word in my office. Move along there, Weasley." Ron managed to give them an apprehensive shrug before he was buffeted away by the herd.

They followed closely behind McGonagall, whom the chattering sea parted for, and in this way easily got to the open ground of the marble staircase.

McGonagall's office was quiet, a comforting fire burning steadily in the hearth, as if Hestia herself were tending it. The room was lined with fat, dusty books on polished oak shelves, and when she took it in, Hermione felt like she had just got her breath back.

The mystery of their detainment was soon cleared up as the professor settled behind her desk and said, "Professor Lupin sent an owl ahead to say that you were taken ill on the train, Potter." He didn't appear to have mentioned Hermione's reaction, though, for which she was grateful, but that left the question of why Hermione was here.

Harry flushed. They were going to make a big fuss over him as if he was a little boy. Hermione knew he hated it. No one had ever given a damn about him when he was small, and besides he had faced worse, far worse, and he was already _special_, always in the merciless spotlight, so he could only ever be embarrassed and hate it. He never noticed, because the idea was still foreign to him, that it was because they loved him.

He sat there going redder as Madam Pomfrey dithered about him like a distraught mother hen, and Hermione wanted a little to laugh even as it made her sad. Harry drew the line, though, apparently, at spending the night in the hospital wing.

Professor McGonagall allowed that he needed no further medical examination (though this left Madam Pomfrey muttering darkly), and bade him wait outside while she spoke to Hermione about her course schedule. Harry left a bit huffily and McGonagall sighed, but Hermione had little sympathy. This was more important than silly old dementors. She'd known it was a stretch to sign up for every elective offered, but she had hoped … well, they couldn't rearrange the entire school to fit only her needs, though part of her argued that they _should_.

"Miss Granger," the professor began as usual, and paused. "Miss Granger," she would say, rolling the r's slightly (her brogue coming out more when she was anxious), choosing her words with care, because Hermione grasped more in fewer words than most adults the professor knew.

_I mustn't cry_, Hermione thought.

"I think you are aware that your course schedule is far too full."

"Yes, professor," she replied, staring at her lap.

"You are also aware that you are one of the brightest and most studious pupils at this school," Professor McGonagall continued matter-of-factly, not quite looking at her student.

Hermione looked up, a little awed, and said nothing; compliments from McGonagall were rare.

"Which is why the matter was considered very thoroughly. You surprise me at every turn, Miss Granger, but I worry that even you might have – " She searched for the right words. "Bitten off more than you can chew."

McGonagall gave her a piercing look over the top of her spectacles.

"Erm," Hermione said, to prove how bright she was.

"Are you certain, Miss Granger," (the simple words "Miss Granger" grew heavier each time they were uttered) "that you are prepared to take on quite such a task?"

"I – I don't think I quite understand, Professor."

"Think carefully before you answer. I have had to jump through a lot of hoops, and I wish to be assured that my efforts will not have been wasted. Are you sure you could handle the course work for every subject we offer?"

Hermione sat up straight.

"I am certain I could, Professor."

McGonagall nodded, looking faintly proud. "Well, it is a shame, then, that so many classes occur at the same time," she lamented as she pulled a black velvet jeweler's box from a drawer in her desk. "After all, nobody can be in two places at once!" She slid the box across the desk, flashing her glance meaningfully at it, then Hermione.

_What?_

"Professor Mc-"

"No buts, Miss Granger." By now, the "Miss Granger" was positively swimming in a soup of subtext, but Hermione was at a complete loss. Professor McGonagall waggled her eyebrows in a most un-McGonagallish and, frankly, alarming fashion. Obviously, Hermione was meant to take the box.

Hermione took the box.

Inside, cushioned upon black silk, lay an object of such beauty it cast all the books Hermione had ever loved in a dim shadow. Time stopped. It was an hourglass, crafted of elegantly curving crystal, which seemed to absorb light and trap it in tiny matrixes arching across its surface. Within it, shimmering golden sand swirled, heedless of the glass's lack of motion.

Hermione looked up, breathless, to find herself faced with a folded piece of parchment, sealed with black wax. She took it from Professor McGonagall's outstretched hand, and the professor put a finger to her lips, at the same time tapping the parchment with her wand. Spidery black writing blossomed from the place.

_Eyes Only._

The parchment was unusually thin, papyrus-like, and the inside bore the same spidery script:

_The object by now in your possession is a Time-Turner. It has the ability to return you to hours past and transport you to hours yet to pass. It is a gift allowed to few. It's secret is yours alone. Should you betray it's very existence to another soul, the consequences will be utterly severe._

The knob on the left (marked "L") will take you back. The knob on the right (marked "R") will take you forward. You will travel approximately one hour for each turn.

It is imperative that you are never seen by your past or future self. This would result in a paradox which could cause innumerable deaths.

_**You must not be seen.**_

All knowledge of the Time-Turner remains in you. You will not speak, nor write, of it under any circumstances. When it is returned, you will forget it entirely.

BURN AFTER READING.

In this moment, as her life was forever altered, Hermione had two thoughts: _Well, that's a bit melodramatic_, and _OH MY GOD_, neither of which was particularly useful.

Looking up, she was startled by the intensity of Professor McGonagall's gaze. There was a bit of longing in there, an echo of a schoolgirl who had chosen books over adventures. Hermione quickly shut the lid on the Time-Turner, and opened her mouth, but the professor shook her head in a way which brooked no argument. It was not to be discussed.

"I am sorry your schedule is not quite as you wished, but I'm afraid there's really nothing we can do," McGonagall said, a bit too loudly, standing and miming tucking something inside her robes.

Hermione hurriedly did as she indicated.

"However, I am sure we will manage to keep you busy," Professor McGonagall predicted, and Hermione could have sworn there was a hint of a smirk playing around her stern mouth.

"Yes," our soon-to-be time traveler agreed with a smirk of her own, "I'm sure you will."

Much later, stuffed with Hogwarts' best fare, Hermione sat in an armchair by the fire in the Gryffindor common room, staring at the Time-Turner. The golden sand shimmered within, and the glass captured the glow of rosy flames, giving it the appearance of burnished bronze. Hermione noticed that it looked almost a different object depending on the light.

The feast and the fire made her feel warm and sleepy, but her mind held tightly to consciousness, and deep within her chest, a splinter of ice lingered still, needling her heart with pinpricks of cold. She clutched the instructions for the Time-Turner, which she had read over and over again, but its warnings did not grow any more comforting.

Two years at Hogwarts had changed Hermione. She was no longer friendless, unwanted, abnormal, but just now she felt as lonely as she had at eleven. And she was just as stubbornly ignorant of it. The quest for knowledge is a solitary road, and sometimes she worried just a little about the lengths she would go to in her quest. The Time-Turner – well, it was hardly dangerous, she was an _academic_, for Merlin's sake, but it was the first thing she hadn't shared with Ron and Harry – _couldn't_share with them, and didn't quite want to either, which was new, and a little unsettling.

Taking a deep breath, Hermione rose and dropped the parchment into the hearth, where it curled, blackening, until there was no trace of it. She lifted the Time-Turner from its safe, black cushion and placed it around her neck, tucking it beneath her robes, and stared hard at the flames as if expecting the answer she hadn't even admitted to needing.

_It's secret is yours alone._

Sleep came reluctantly to Hermione that night. He had the dormitory already in his grip when she entered, and her presence caused a ripple of disturbance in his peaceful territory. The other girls turned over or murmured words which Sleep then took for his own.

Hermione dressed for bed, but did not remove the Time-Turner. It lay against her bare skin, barely there but terribly present. Coming from the toilets, she paused in the doorway, listening to the breaths of these girls whose lives ran side by side with hers, but never touched, and set upon the bedclothes with unnecessary force, sort of punching the pillow rather than fluffing it. When she turned down the blanket, she yanked it right off the end of the bed.

"Oh, for _heaven's_ sake!" she hissed, hardly bothering to keep her voice down. She got into bed feeling annoyed, and then became even more annoyed at her unreasonable annoyance. "Oh, for heaven's _sake_," she muttered, and forced herself to crumple her annoyance into a tiny wad throw it way away… out among the stars, into the black void where she now gazed, breathing slowly, hypnotising herself into a meditative semi-consciousness.

An hour or more she lay awake in a distant state, feeling almost as if she were hovering above herself, looking down on a corpse, cold and absent. Then the dream came.

She was falling. Falling out of an empty sky, a perfectly matte black sky. There were no clouds, but the air was full of freezing, stinging bits of ice. Far below, something was gathering to meet her in the dark.

When she hit the water (it was the lake, of course), it softened, trying to cradle her, soothe her, but she plunged deep with the force of her fall, and the black water rushed in over her head. As she sank, she opened her eyes, but there was nothing. There was nothing, nothing, nothing, but the cold and the building pressure, like blocks of ice squeezing her skull until it cracked. She couldn't take it, she wanted to be nothing, she would give, give, give it everything, until it stopped.

It stopped. The cold pressure stopped, and she was nothing. She wanted nothing. She was one more strand of blackness in that black lake.

The lake gave a sigh that sent a ripple rolling lazily toward an indeterminate shore. Part of it had been girl. There was a something on the shore. A faintly luminescent, pale form. It called to the ghost of the girl in the water.

_Come back_.

The girl was part of the lake now, and the lake did not understand.

_Come out of the cold. While you still can._

The lake swirled a little thoughtfully.

_What cold?_

The something's thoughts ached, and it said, sadly and cryptically, _You don't know what you are._

_I am Lake_, the lake replied, after some little thought. _I am vast and deep_. This it was quite sure of, and it was comforted by the sureness.

_You are a girl_, the something stressed, _A Someone_.

The something, or the someone, extended a white hand over the water. The someone glowed brighter so that it almost hurt, but a hand emerged from the water and hesitantly reached for the someone. The two hands clasped for one moment, and then pain rippled out across the lake. The water began to seethe. The black hand shattered into droplets, which fell to sit on the surface like oil.

_A trick! A trick!_ the lake hissed. _It burns!_

_No!_ cried the someone. _It is not a trick. It's the cold. You will die of the cold. Come back! You must come back._

_We are not cold! We are not cold. Go away, now. I banish you!_

The little, pale someone receded sadly, and eventually the water stilled. The black lake lay placid under an endless black sky, and told itself, now and again, _We are not cold. We are Lake. We are vast and deep. We are not cold._


End file.
